Georgia Forward

For my column this month, I wanted to talk about the Georgia Forward conference that was held at Callaway Gardens in mid-August. From their website, “Georgia Forward is an independent, non-partisan organization working to improve the state of Georgia by engaging business, political, academic and civil leaders to collaboratively shape a statewide policy agenda.” They invited me to speak on the state of innovation in Georgia, and I was pleased to participate. My slides are available online here, and there is supposed to be video someday.

There’s a good overview in the AJC here. But there were a lot of great speakers at the conference, and I wanted to share some of their thoughts with you. I started going through my notes, and realized that I had posted most of the “good stuff” on Twitter! So I decided that this month’s column would be a list of my tweets during the two days I was at Callaway (sectioned off by headings so you get an idea of different sessions, rather than one undifferentiated stream).

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you get cheated this month. If you don’t, this may be a quick lesson in the value of social media. It’s a lot more than “What I had for lunch today”!

Getting Started

At the Georgia Forward conference

Bill Steiner lobbed me a softball question about hackerspaces. Love them, want to see more in Georgia! Thanks, Bill!

Mathew Hauer, University of Georgia Vinson Institute

Title of UGA demographics talk at #gafwd : “Georgia is the New California”!

Mathew Hauer: Over 1 million Georgians speak a foreign language at home

Mathew Hauer: Georgia has 10 of the 50 fastest growing counties in the USA

Mathew Hauer: Gwinnett County is #1 in USA for growth of Asian in-migration.

Mathew Hauer: Hispanics currently 9% of Georgia population. Will double in 10 years at current rates.

Mathew Hauer: Already more Hispanics being born in Georgia than moving here. Will accelerate. More than immigration issue.

Mathew Hauer: Almost all population growth in Georgia will be < age 25 or > age 65. They mostly don’t pay taxes. Ouch. #demographics

David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General, CEO of Comeback America

RT @RyanTaylorAIA: David Walker says US founding fathers did not intend current government: politicians were intended to be biz persons

RT @iruncampaigns: “Government has grown too big, promised too much and waited too long to address its fiscal issues.” – David Walker

Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed the tweetstream. The mood at the conference was… hard to say. “Optimistic, but worried”? Over dinner and in hallway conversations, there seemed to be a consensus that Georgia had lost momentum over the last decade. One person in particular had met with a senior economic development civil servant from North Carolina. He asked “What do you in North Carolina think of Georgia?” The answer: “We don’t. We think about Texas, and Asia, and Brazil.”

Ouch.

But it wasn’t doom and gloom. I think there was a consensus that our destiny was largely in our own hands. Deepening the port of Savannah will help. Passing TSPLOST will help fix the infrastructure that has been ignored for too long. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals tossing out Judge Magnuson’s looming restrictions on Lake Lanier will help until we get new reservoirs built. Even the Atlanta Public School cheating scandal may help, if it gets taxpayers and business leaders focused on how terribly broken our K-12 system is.

It’s a difficult time in Georgia, but I think it’s a difficult time all across the United States. I certainly wouldn’t trade places with California, whose deficit is bigger than our budget!